How do you enter data on site?

[David P. Valley]

I do my inspections verbally, only. I walk my clients through their prospective home and tell them what I see and I'm done. I collect my fee.

Do you think I should be using reporting software?

[Mark A. Timpani]

I offer two reports two choices to clients. Onsite or Online

1. Voice record, pics and write the report onsite. (matrix) Come home and email the pics.

2. I take notes, use a voice recorder and take pictures, come home and use HIP and email them the report.

[Michael R. Boyett]

Originally Posted by dvalley

I do my inspections verbally, only. I walk my clients through their prospective home and tell them what I see and I'm done. I collect my fee?

Excellent! One other well known board contributor takes it even further...on one version of his inspections he doesn't comment on anything unless the client asks about it. At the end he tells them there is more but to hear about it will cost extra. What a deal, huh?

[Jeffrey R. Jonas]

I generally use field notes/pencil and camera, probably 95% of the time. Occassionally will bring my laptop, if the property is expected to be a complicated one. We have many turn of the century (late 1800's) homes here that can get one's mind out of focus in a hurry, with some really bizarre stuff. I never take a chance on forgetting something, or losing information. Had a PDA a couple of years ago. Hated it. Sold it on EBay



Hey Brian... we really didn't need to know this!!!

Originally Posted by bkelly2

I do it like Dale does.

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by mboyett

Excellent! One other well known board contributor takes it even further...on one version of his inspections he doesn't comment on anything unless the client asks about it. At the end he tells them there is more but to hear about it will cost extra. What a deal, huh?

My reply was pun intended.....

[Jeff Knight]

Dominic,
You may want to revise the survey slightly and ask HOW inspectors are using the tablets and/or laptops....if they are carrying it with them as they are doing their inspection or are they setting it up in the kitchen and running back and forth to enter the data after each room or entering the data all at the end. A large franchise company had their own software that ran on a PC and the local franchise was always getting grief that they took too long at the inspection because they had to reenter all their findings at the end of the inspection to create the report....usually a 20 minute deal....if they were doing pictures it would even take longer.

Jeff Knight
Knights Software
www.knightssoftware.com

[George F. Fransway]

I use a mini computer that some refer to as a PDA. I've completed 800+ inspections, use Porter Valley Software and have not had the pda not communicate with my laptopo before assigning pictures and printing the report on site. My realtors and customers like the on site service.

[bzimbelman]

Originally Posted by Jeff Knight

Dominic,
You may want to revise the survey slightly and ask HOW inspectors are using the tablets and/or laptops....if they are carrying it with them as they are doing their inspection or are they setting it up in the kitchen and running back and forth to enter the data after each room or entering the data all at the end. A large franchise company had their own software that ran on a PC and the local franchise was always getting grief that they took too long at the inspection because they had to reenter all their findings at the end of the inspection to create the report....usually a 20 minute deal....if they were doing pictures it would even take longer.

Jeff Knight
Knights Software
www.knightssoftware.com

Good point Jeff. I actually do both. I set up my tablet in the kitchen (usually) in it's laptop configuration, then I go with the digital camera and inspect things like the roof, crawlspaces, etc. About every 20 photos or when the few brain cells that have not been burned out , I come back and import the photos and update the report much like Dale/Brian suggested in their posts earlier.

I then go back and do the next sections of the inspection that I don't want to be carrying anything with me for. Once, I'm done with those types of areas, I switch the tablet into tablet mode, and carry it around while I inspect the inside of the structure, electric, plumbing, HVAC, etc.

An example of this might be, lets say the house has a metal roof, I go up and see that it is a 2:12 pitch for most of the house, but 1:12 over the back porch, I take 6 photos of loose/missing screws, 3 of flashing issues, 2 of the two chimneys so I'll remember the details and I notice that the one from the living room has a fair amount of buildup inside. I also take a photo of the back gutter with the beer can, tennis ball and leaves built up in it. All in all one of our better roofs.

So, I come down, and select the report fill in HG for a metal roof, it fills in my report section for metal roofing, and excludes all of the line items for shingle roof, built up roof and other types of roofing. I then start dragging the photos to the various questions about metal roofing and annotating them as I go. Add a few comments and I'm done. I don't move in the chimney photos as they don't show any issues, just simply fill in the details (one is metal chimney one is masonry, have spark arresters, etc.) and add a canned comment about needing to be cleaned.

Once I've finished with all of the comments, I save the report, and copy the photos off of the memory card into the photos save directory I have for each report. That way the card is clean for the next batch of photos and I have the photos both that I included in the report and those I didn't include in the report for my documentation.

This would probably take me less then 2 minutes to accomplish, so it doesn't slow me down too much. I probably do this four to six times during an inspection and rarely spend much more then five minutes at the computer at any one time unless the issues require writing a novel (electric service panel in crawlspace or charred rafters over the original section of the house, or big issues like that which I want specific, detailed, custom comments for).

On the other hand, when I'm inspecting the rooms, I use the tablet in tablet mode because I rarely take too many photos, simply walk through the rooms, documenting the type and condition of flooring, walls, ceiling fan operations, etc. If there is an issue that needs a photo, I pull the camera out of the pocket, take the photo and put it back in. After I'm done with all of the interior, I might have four or five photos (in most cases), and I will place them in the report all at the same time. Usually I've already added the comments for them (from canned comments) so it doesn't take but a few seconds to drag the photos to the right spots and annotate them.

Just as a side, I also add 'stock' photos to my comments sometimes. HG calls these drawings, but many of mine are just photos I have in my collection and it handles both in the same way. One of the most common photos I add is that of a correctly wired service panel. I see a professionally installed service panel maybe 5% of the time. So, I have the spaghetti panel of the house as one photo, and the professionally wired panel as the other photo and the canned comment that says something to the effect of, "which do you trust???" I use to just call out that the panel was wired by an amateur, but that didn't seem to concern folks much, now when they see them side by side, they look at it and go, "hum, maybe I should have this looked at...".

Hope that helps!

-- bz

[Michael R. Boyett]

Originally Posted by dvalley

My reply was pun intended.....

I would hope so...

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Originally Posted by cyezza

I prefer the PDA and I use my tablet only as a backup. PDA is easy to carry around. Lots of pictures to help document. Will you ever consider a PDA version?

Hi Chuck,

First, I wanted to say thanks. Your friend Tony Perry purchased Home Inspector Pro yesterday after seeing it on your website. I talked to him for about half hour, really nice guy.

I probably wont create a PDA version. My personal opinion is that the ultra compact tablets that are now coming out with 5-7" screens are better for inputting than PDA's, though I know some disagree with me. I've referred a few guys who wanted to get PDA's to get these new tablets or UMPC's and they love them. Since they run full Windows XP or Vista I can use the same software program which means more development time into one program rather than spread across multiple programs to maintain. This keeps my costs way down. If I made a PDA program I'd have twice as much to maintain and would have to hire more people.

I tried a PDA test about a year ago but it just goes against the grain of how the program is designed, which is to see everything at once, minimize all clicks and keyboard usage and easily import and annotate photos. I'll leave the PDA software to the other guys.

[Justo Mickey Rivera]

I usually take a pen, pad and camera. But, today the weather froze my pen, ate my battery in my camera and my pad got wet. LOL. Oh well

Mic

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Originally Posted by Jeff Knight

Dominic,
You may want to revise the survey slightly and ask HOW inspectors are using the tablets and/or laptops....if they are carrying it with them as they are doing their inspection or are they setting it up in the kitchen and running back and forth to enter the data after each room or entering the data all at the end. A large franchise company had their own software that ran on a PC and the local franchise was always getting grief that they took too long at the inspection because they had to reenter all their findings at the end of the inspection to create the report....usually a 20 minute deal....if they were doing pictures it would even take longer.

Jeff Knight
Knights Software
www.knightssoftware.com

I'll add that to the question. I can't add any more poll choices (max of 10).

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Originally Posted by gfransway

I use a mini computer that some refer to as a PDA. I've completed 800+ inspections, use Porter Valley Software and have not had the pda not communicate with my laptopo before assigning pictures and printing the report on site. My realtors and customers like the on site service.

Hi George,

What model is it? So you use a PDA but then sync it to your laptop at the end of the inspection to add your photos and print?

There are a lot of new small tablets coming out. A PDA runs Palm OS or Windows Mobile only. Tablets can get down to 5" screens now and run Windows 98,2000,XP or Vista.

[Jeff Knight]

Dominic,
FYI: You can write the software so that it will run on both the PocketPC and PC using the same source code. Visual Studio lets you do this. The only thing we need to change is a couple screens for the PDA version otherwise all the rest of the code is shared. If you start on the PDA first and THEN create the PC version it is much easier....trying to do it the other way is much more difficult. Our software looks the same on a PC as it does on a PocketPC....it is just the PC version has a bigger screen...so the layouts are bigger.
The trick is to write the user interface so that the screen layouts can grow dynamically based on how big the hardware screen is that is running it. A good example would be instead of creating a bunch of tabs for each Category at the top of the window which would work nice for a big screen...but horrible for a small screen... you instead use a scrollable list of the Categories and when you select the Category it opens into that Category. This then uses the full screen very effectively...one of 3Ds first PocketPC versions had numerous tabs on the top which covered over half the PDA screen which made it impossible to enter any data once you brought up the onscreen keyboard. An example of trying to replicate the interface of their PC version.

Jeff

[Jeff Knight]

Originally Posted by dmaricic

Hi George,

There are a lot of new small tablets coming out. A PDA runs Palm OS or Windows Mobile only. Tablets can get down to 5" screens now and run Windows 98,2000,XP or Vista.

Dominic,
George is using the PDA to do his data collection....and as I said before...you do NOT need a full Windows machine to do simple data collection. He is using it in place of a clipboard and form...or voice recorder to eliminate the process of rekeying data.

Jeff